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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27659539">here we are in the weeds again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin'>ivermectin</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gossip Girl (TV 2007)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Awkward Sexual Situations, Canon diverges post s5, Dan Humphrey is Not Gossip Girl, Established Dan/Blair, Getting Together, Multi, Past Relationship(s), Polyamory Negotiations, Smut, chapter 1 is POV Blair, chapter 2 is POV Dan, mild exhibitionism (sort of / almost?), no infidelity in this one, s5 final episode does not happen, vaguely referenced kinks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:49:53</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,779</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27659539</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan and Blair, making out, getting each other off.<br/>Extremely normal, routine, same as always, right?<br/>Well, no. Here comes Nate.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf, Nate Archibald/Dan Humphrey, Nate Archibald/Dan Humphrey/Blair Waldorf</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>35</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I'm tagging Dan/Blair, Dan/Nate &amp; Dan/Nate/Blair separately because that's sort of what's going on in terms of how the fic plays out - Dan &amp; Blair are dating, when the Nate thing becomes a thing, and those three different relationship tags are three different dynamics that are going on. </p><p>the amount of smut in this... :o) </p><p>Title from "Boot Theory" by Siken.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Later on, Blair will think that out of all the times and places, there was a poetic justice to doing what they’d done at Nate’s housewarming. Nate was still a little shaken from things with Chuck, she could tell, and she and Dan were giving him space, letting him talk to Serena on the computer – she was off somewhere with Carter Baizen, never in the same city for two days in a row, and wholly happy in a way she’d never been before.</p><p>Blair’s heels give her enough height that she can kiss Dan right on the mouth, and she does, swinging her body into his with enough force that he slams against the wall. He makes a dazed and soft noise muffled in their kiss, his hands gingerly pressing against her, and she grins against his mouth. She can do anything to him, she knows, and he will let her, he will think it’s cute, even though they’re in Nate’s house for his housewarming, Serena on the Skype call one room away, even then, she can unravel him right here like an old sweater or a piece of performance art, and he’ll just let her do it.</p><p>“Blair,” he hisses, while she digs her knee against his groin, scrapes gently at his neck with her nails before idly tracing the pretty vein on the side of his neck. “Blair, we can’t do this here – Nate – ”</p><p>“Oh, of course,” she says, stepping away. Dan looks winded, confused, barely put together, and Blair revels in it. “Where are my manners?” She gives him an overly saccharine smile, takes one of his hands and tugs at him, walking away and leading him somewhere.</p><p>“Where are we going?” Dan asks.</p><p><em>That’s for me to know and you to find out, </em>Blair considers saying. Instead, she says, “Extra bedroom.”</p><p>“What,” Dan splutters, but he follows her lead all the same, the way he always does. She pushes him down onto the bed, crawls over him, her body bracketing him down against the mattress.</p><p>“The real question is,” Blair says, pressing her hands against his chest, delighting in the way he looks at her, confused and alert and waiting, “do you think we can get you off before Nate notices we’re gone?”</p><p>“Depends on how much Serena has to say,” Dan says. Blair leans forward, presses a wet open-mouthed kiss to his throat, sucking against his Adam’s apple. Dan makes a rough noise, his breath going irregular. He shifts, says softly, “You’re getting gloss all over me.”</p><p>“Sounds like a you problem,” Blair says, slipping her hands under the waistband of his pants, pressing her fingers into his thighs idly as she shifts around, trying to find the right spot to get them both off with minimal clothes removal. “Are you scared of make-up, or something?”</p><p>“No,” Dan says. The look in his eyes makes it clear that he wants to say more, so Blair shifts, adjusts her skirt and undoes his pants so that finally, there’s the press of skin against skin, but covered enough that they won’t accidentally flash Nate if he chooses to make an appearance.</p><p>As she’d expected, Dan doesn’t say much, and she rocks against him, shifting her body based off the way he moves, revelling in the broken off way he’s mumbling her name again and again more to himself than to her, even after all these times they’ve had sex, with a sense of baffled wonder like it’s something new he still doesn’t believe he gets to have, and it makes her smile involuntarily; a smile that she can’t get rid of even if she wanted to.</p><p>She tangles a hand in his hair, pulls the way she knows he likes it, and he groans, low and resonant, a rough, deep noise that is impossibly sexy. She kisses him sloppily, moves one of her hands to shift his shirt, trails her fingers everywhere, touching his shoulders and his chest, the soft and ticklish skin on the inside of his upper arms, running her fingertips around his nipples in the way that she’d discovered, by accident, always makes him blush.  </p><p>She considers using her mouth, but Dan’s close already, the thrill of doing something forbidden and the risk of getting caught more of an aphrodisiac than she would’ve expected from him, but something she’s used to by now, given how often they’ve done this. <em>No wonder Serena liked you, </em>she’d thought once, when she was drunk. He was cheerful in a way that complimented Serena, warmth and easy smiles, obviously trustworthy and solid in a way that worked oddly well with Serena’s chameleon tendencies and inability to stay in one place at a time. All that said, this was the one kink she knew they’d had in common; she could imagine them, Dan and Serena, hiding out in plain sight, touching each other, and later on, smiling like they had a secret.</p><p>None of that matters though – Dan is here with her, now, and Serena was never hers, anyway.</p><p>Dan right now is shifting, too, his hands finding her lower back, pulling her closer, his mouth finding her ear and carefully pressing a kiss behind it in a way that she wouldn’t have thought she’d be into if it wasn’t Dan, right before he licks the outer shell of her ear. He nibbles at the tip, just to be contrary, she suspects, and she digs her nails into his hips, whispers, “Focus, for heaven’s sake,” and he makes a noise that’s half-laugh, half-groan.</p><p>“I can’t think when you do that,” he complains, soft and adoring, his face flushed and eyes hazy. Blair loves being able to undo him like this; she loves that he makes her feel powerful, that he believes she’s powerful, too. “Blair, I… I’m close.”</p><p>She undoes the first two buttons of his shirt, caution be damned, and presses a kiss to his chest, meanwhile finally putting one of her hands under his boxers and carefully curling her fingers around his dick. He shifts, pressing a kiss to the curve of one of her breasts, sloppy in the way that only someone on the brink of orgasm who is still trying to be considerate can be.</p><p>There’s the soft sound of footsteps tapping along the wood panelling, and Blair grins, whispers, “Maybe he won’t notice. Maybe you’ll come before <em>he</em> comes in here.”</p><p>“Waldorf, fucksake,” Dan groans. “Is this the time for wordplay?” More shakily, he insists, “Move your hand. I’m so close, it’ll just take a few strokes. I won’t last even three. Please.”  </p><p>She doesn’t doubt it, she can tell that he’s close, it’s thrumming in every line of his body. She also knows that if she’s quick enough, she can get him off, throw a blanket over them, and if Dan isn’t too dazed post-sex, both of them can smile at Nate innocently with warm and innocent doe eyes. Even if Dan’s out of it, it doesn’t matter, she’s good at taking charge.</p><p>So she strokes, once, twice, setting a rhythm, and Dan’s fucked up breathing gets even more irregular, and he sighs, like he’s going to –  </p><p>And the door swings open, and Nate says, startled, “Dan?” like he cannot believe his eyes. If Blair had been facing the other way, maybe she would’ve gotten to see the look of surprise on his face, but it’s not a loss she mourns, because she gets to watch Dan’s face go an embarrassing shade of pink, his entire body going through a stutter not unlike an engine revving, and he chokes out, “<em>Nate</em>,” as he comes all of a sudden, with more intensity than ever before.</p><p>-</p><p>Nate is standing frozen at the door, and Dan’s put his head in his hands and is curled in on himself in embarrassment or shame, so it’s clear that Blair’s in charge of the situation. To call it awkward would be an understatement, but she’s Blair Waldorf. She does not give up.</p><p>She adjusts her dress and Dan’s pants, and then, shifts so that she’s sitting next to Dan and not on top of him. Carefully, she pries one of his hands off his face, and presses a clean hand against his cheek instead.</p><p>“Look at me, Dan,” she says gently.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says, under his breath.</p><p>“For what?” Blair huffs. Neutrally but firmly, she asks, “Do you love me?”</p><p>Dan is startled into making eye contact with her. He looks shocked. “Of course I do, Blair,” he says, and she knows he’s telling the truth. “More than anything.”</p><p>“And Nate?” she asks.</p><p>He looks away now, clearly not wanting to talk about it. “He’s my best friend,” he says.</p><p>It’s a confession, in a way, even though he hasn’t said anything. A confession through omission. Blair thinks of herself, and Nate, that one time they’d gone drinking together when they were both fifteen, and Nate had asked her about Serena, “Are you in love with her?” and Blair had smiled, artificial and sweet as anything, and said, “She’s my best friend.”</p><p>Blair gets it. She’s been in this exact position before.</p><p>“You love him,” she says.</p><p>“Blair,” he says, and it sounds broken.</p><p>“No, it’s fine, it’s great, actually,” Blair says, smiling slightly. She lets her gaze shift to Nate, who’s standing at the doorway, looking like he’d rather be anywhere but there. “Care to join us, Nate?”</p><p>Nate blinks, as if his language processing abilities have left his body entirely. He looks at Blair, looks at Dan, who is decidedly not looking at him. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”</p><p>Blair doesn’t smile, doesn’t demand. She just lets her honesty and certainty bleed into her response. “Yes. Absolutely.”</p><p>Nate exhales. “Okay,” he says, more to himself than to either of them. Then, cautiously, “Dan?”</p><p>“Whatever you want,” Dan says. He looks less embarrassed now, and more sad. Blair wants to tell him that there’s no tragedy here, but she thinks maybe it’s a comfortable state of being for Dan. He’s waiting for one of them – or both of them – to break his heart, and then he can write a book about it, maybe lick his wounds and wipe his tears in Serena’s gleaming hair. She gets it; of course she gets it. She’s always lived her life like she’s in a movie, she understands Dan’s need to be a character in a book.</p><p>Nate has always been more perceptive than most people give him credit for, something Blair’s known, having grown up with him for a best friend, and later, a boyfriend. He walks over to the bed, sits on the other side of Dan, puts a hand in his hair and carefully runs his fingers through it.</p><p>“Only whatever you’re willing to give,” Nate says.</p><p>Dan takes a shaky breath. “I… I.. yeah,” he says, looking at Blair for a moment with uncertainty in his expression. She’s never understood how he finds vulnerability so easy, but at least it means she always knows how he’s really feeling. “I just don’t understand.”</p><p>“What don’t you understand?” Blair asks.</p><p>“Both of you don’t do threesomes with people you know,” Dan reminds them.</p><p>“This isn’t going to be a threesome,” Blair promises. “You just told me you love me, and implied that you love Nate. Right?”</p><p>Dan does not look particularly reassured by this. He nods, expression grim.</p><p>“We’ll reach an agreement,” Blair says. “Ever heard of polyamory, Humphrey?”</p><p>Dan’s expression does something Blair can’t follow, but his confusion is practically audible. “Do you think we could really make that work?” he asks, softly. And then, turning his head a little, to face Nate, he says, “Is this something you actually want?”</p><p>Nate’s hand is still in Dan’s hair, tracing patterns. “Yeah,” he says. He looks at Blair, who looks right back at him. “It’s not like we didn’t do this before.”</p><p>Blair nods. “We could share Chuck,” she says, and the words burn a little, coming up. He’s hurt them both, albeit in different ways, but still; he’s broken both their hearts. “If we could do <em>that,” </em>and she lets some contempt seep into it, “we can definitely share Dan.”</p><p>“Whoa, whoa,” Dan says. “You could – you did – what? And now you – ” He breaks off, gesturing awkwardly with his hands between Blair and Nate, “with me? How, what, it sounds a bit like,” he stops again, blinking. “You going to split me in halves?”</p><p>“Depends,” Blair says, smirking. “Are you going to let us? Nate can have your inane chatter, I want to keep your hands.”</p><p>Dan, despite himself, laughs at that. The look on his face is still concerned though, uncertain, shaken up.</p><p>“Hey, dude,” Nate offers, pressing his shoulder against Dan’s in a way that is solely platonic, and comfortingly normal. “It’s just us, me and Blair. You don’t need to worry, okay?”</p><p>Dan exhales, nods. “Okay,” he says. He’s still not looking at them. “Okay, that’s okay. But I still don’t fully get it. What was the deal with you both and Chuck?”</p><p>“I was Chuck’s girlfriend,” Blair says, cutting it short. “Nate was Chuck’s boyfriend. That’s it.”</p><p>“And it worked?” Dan asks. “I mean, no offence, but… Chuck?”</p><p>“It’s not about Chuck, it’s about me and Blair,” Nate says. “In that way, it worked. The thing is, there’s nothing to be jealous of, not when it’s us.”</p><p>“Dan,” Blair says. The tone of her voice, the gravity in it, makes Dan turn to face her, meeting her eyes. “I love you. You know that, don’t you?”</p><p>“Yeah,” Dan says, swallowing like his mouth is dry. “I know.”</p><p>“If you love Nate,” Blair says, “and if Nate loves you too, I want you to have that. You don’t have to give anything up, or choose between us.”</p><p>Dan closes his eyes. “This is unreal,” he says, shifting and putting his hands over his eyes. “I just…” he exhales again, shakily. “It can’t possibly be that easy.”</p><p>“I think how easy or difficult a relationship is depends on the people in it,” Nate offers. He puts a hand on Dan’s forearm, and Blair can see Dan melt, and she smiles. “We’re on your side, Dan, okay?”</p><p>Dan nods. “Okay,” he says. “Okay, yes, we can do that, yes.”</p><p>“Great!” Blair says enthusiastically. “Now. Are you both going to kiss, or what?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When Nate looks at him with those vivid, steel blue eyes, Dan thinks he’s going to die. Writer or no, he’ll never quite be able to put it all in words, the embarrassment, the way he’d felt, <em>electric</em>, Blair’s body, Nate’s voice, <em>god</em>, Nate’s <em>voice, </em>Nate’s low and comforting drawl, saying “Dan,” in that tone, Blair’s hands, Blair’s hair falling everywhere, the way she smelled, the feeling that was Blair, warm and comfortable, her skin pressed against his, and Nate’s eyes looking at him, asking him a question, calling his name, Nate, and Blair, and Blair, and Nate, and he thinks he orgasms with one of their names in his mouth and both of their names in his head, and he sort of wants to die with how mortified he is.</p>
<p>So when Blair takes it in her stride, and she and Nate tell him they used to both date Chuck at the same time, he doesn’t know what to do with it, or how to fit this new knowledge of Blair and Nate with what he knew of them previously. Serena had told him once, that Blair was strictly monogamous. Dan always thought nobody knew Blair like Serena did. Once he’d started dating her, he’d felt almost like nobody knew Blair like he did, however arrogant that came off. Now, sitting on the bed between Blair and Nate, he knows he was wrong both times. Nobody knew Blair like <em>Nate </em>did. Maybe it took him a while to get there, but that was Nate for you. Steady, perceptive, dependable. Dan’s unobtainable straight best friend. Or so he’d thought.</p>
<p>“Are you both going to kiss, or what?” Blair is asking. And Dan just blinks, turns away from her to face Nate again.</p>
<p>He suddenly feels like he did back when he was dating Serena in high school, and everything was new, and he was so afraid of being bad at sex that he’d read every article that he could find on the internet, and made notes while watching porn, like it was a subject he could study and score well on. He’s kissed a lot of people, of course, but he’s never kissed Nate, and it’s terrifying.</p>
<p>“Hey,” Nate says, his arms wrapping around Dan, his hands curling around Dan’s shoulders. “If this is really something you want, you don’t have to be afraid of wanting it. It’s just me.”</p>
<p><em>That’s the problem</em>, Dan wants to yell. Instead, he leans in, puts a hand on Nate’s face, body arching towards Nate like a sunflower facing the sun. <em>Kiss me, </em>he thinks, but he doesn’t say anything. Thankfully, Nate acts on it, his hands shifting, pulling Dan against him, pressing against his lower back as he kisses Dan.</p>
<p>It’s not a cautious kiss, for which Dan should probably be grateful. It’s gentle, but firm. Nate deepens the kiss, and Dan lets it absorb him, kisses back firmly.</p>
<p>“Manhandle him,” Blair instructs, something cheerful and warm in her voice. “Dan likes being pushed around.”</p>
<p>In that moment, Dan smiles too, unsure about what he’d even worried about. He knows he’s blushing, and Nate pushes him over, pressing him against the bed.</p>
<p>“Like that?” he asks.</p>
<p>Dan hums an affirmation. He lets his hands sneak up Nate’s shirt, and he’s still surprised that he gets to do this.</p>
<p>“You didn’t come, did you?” Nate asks, looking at Blair.</p>
<p>Blair shifts. “It’s fine,” she tells Nate. “Dan will help. Won’t you?”</p>
<p>Dan exhales, shaky. “You’re both going to be the death of me,” he murmurs, but he wriggles a little from under Nate’s grasp, letting one of his hands press against her right thigh, fingers shifting. “What do you want, Blair?”</p>
<p>“You, apparently,” she says. “Well, specifically, your hands.” She shifts, quickly takes her panties off with no fanfare, which makes Dan feel temporarily sad, because it’s nice lingerie, and she usually makes a thing out of it, which makes him combust and think he’s going to explode before she’s even touched him. But maybe this is a small mercy, given that Nate is leaning over him, looking at him with an intensity that borders on hunger. Then, without much ado, she shifts his hand, guiding it between her legs, shifting her hips so that the sides of his index and middle finger are pressed against her clit on both sides. He can feel how warm and wet she is, and he swallows audibly.</p>
<p>“Is this angle okay?” she asks him, beginning to grind against his hand. “I don’t want to give you carpal tunnel.”</p>
<p>“Yeah,” Dan says, even though he has no idea whether the angle is okay, and has no idea how to even think about something like that at this time. Nate, tired of waiting, has begun to suck against Dan’s neck, apparently working on leaving a hickey, and it feels surreal.</p>
<p>“I’m okay,” he tells her, hoping it’s true. He doesn’t want carpal tunnel. Distractedly, he thinks, Blair really <em>does </em>like his hands, and maybe she’d actually keep them if she could. It makes him think of the Siken poem, <em>a man takes his sadness and throws it away but then he's still left with his hands</em>, and then, he asks her, voice shaky, “Do you need anything from me? Should I move my fingers, or…”</p>
<p>“I’ll handle it,” Blair says. “Try to focus on Nate.”</p>
<p>Dan feels like a popsicle in July, melting. He looks at Nate.</p>
<p>“Hey,” he says to Nate. “What do you want?”</p>
<p>“How far do you want to go?” Nate asks, looking up at him. He shifts, licks Dan’s jawline smoothly, with the sort of confidence that was one of the first things Dan had noticed about him, back when they were still at St. Jude’s, and he hadn’t met Serena van der Woodsen at that party. Dan wonders how much it is possible for one person to blush, and hopes Nate and Blair are paying attention, in case he breaks the Guinness record for it.</p>
<p>Sex is still a big deal for Dan in some ways, something that still feels sacred. He looks at Nate, using the hand that Blair isn’t grinding against to trace the slope of his shoulders, shifting to his neck, tracing a circle around his Adam’s apple. “Not all the way,” he says, forcing himself to meet Nate’s eyes.</p>
<p>“By which you mean nothing penetrative, of course,” Blair says helpfully. She moves off Dan’s hand, and places a gentle kiss to the inside of his wrist, before sucking his fingers playfully. Dan shivers involuntarily.</p>
<p>“Mmhm, that’s a good idea,” Nate says, glancing at Blair, who’s sucking Dan’s fingers enthusiastically. He puts his hand on Dan’s stomach before moving downwards slowly and carefully. He puts a hand on the waistband of his boxers. “May I?”</p>
<p>Dan nods, and Nate carefully pulls Dan’s boxers and pants off, curling a hand around his hip. “I’m going to go down on you,” he says, tone of voice as if he’s commenting on the weather forecast. “Okay?”</p>
<p>Dan hums an agreement, but he still feels like he’s in some sort of weird alternate reality, because there can’t possibly be a world in which Nate wants to do this with him, can there?</p>
<p>Maybe Nate can read the expression on his face, because he says, gently, “What, bro, are you afraid my dick’s bigger?” and it’s such a stupid thing to say that it snaps Dan out of his daze, and he laughs.</p>
<p>“God, you’re such a jock,” he says. “Stereotypical jock.”</p>
<p>Nate laughs then, turning his face so that he muffles it in Dan’s thigh. Dan exhales suddenly, and the next thing Dan knows, Nate’s taking him in his mouth, both hands grasping him by the hips and pressing him down. Blair takes one of his hands, folds some fingers down, and guides them inside her, and Dan says, to both of them and also just to nobody in particular, thinking aloud, “How do we do this?” and then Nate does something with his tongue and with his hands, pulling Dan’s body ever so slightly, shifting his head to take Dan in even deeper, and Blair shifts the angle of her hips and says, “Try and match his rhythm,” so Dan does that, timing the thrusting of his fingers to the pace at which Nate is going to town on him, revelling in the breathy noises that she’s making, even as he lets an embarrassing stream of moans and whimpers loose.</p>
<p>Dan stops listening to himself and focuses instead on running his free hand through Nate’s hair, and Nate pulls off when Dan comes, and Dan makes a noise unlike any noise he’s made in the recent past, and something he would’ve assumed entirely out of his vocal range, and Blair gives him the sort of smirk that implies that she’s laughing at him, but he can tell from her expression that she’s close, so he moves his hand a little, pressing his thumb against her clit while still moving his fingers in and out, rubbing circles idly. It’s the perfect decision; she comes with a long drawn <em>oh, </em>and gives him a satisfied smile.</p>
<p>Dan looks at Nate, who’s watching him, waiting for something. “Your turn,” Dan says, feeling suddenly brave. He gets up a little, reaches for Nate’s hips, gently tugs at his pants and boxers, doing it gradually and with enough non-verbal cues that if Nate so wishes, he can stop Dan halfway through, or just say the word. Nate just nods, though, but now it’s him who has an uncertain expression, one that Dan recognises because he’s felt that way enough times in the past.</p>
<p>Dan shifts, kisses Nate, gently, thoroughly, as comfortingly as he can. Blair is lying down, watching them with a sleepy expression. After four deep and intense kisses, Dan shifts, peppering random parts of Nate’s body with kisses; his shoulders, his collarbone, his hands, his stomach, his thighs, his hips. He stops there, and looks up at Nate.</p>
<p>“I’m pretty sure mine was bigger,” he says, before sticking his tongue out, and licking circles around Nate’s dick. After a few tentative licks, he gradually takes Nate in his mouth, not rushing it, making sure that it is wet and easy and intense, and he knows he’s doing something right based off the way Nate is breathing differently, and murmuring “Dan” and “don’t stop” and “yes” and other cliché sex dialogues under his breath. Dan does a thing with his tongue, and moves a little, not setting a pace in the way Nate had, but experimenting with the feeling of it, seeing what Nate is most responsive to, and doing that, again and again. When Nate comes, with a hurried warning, Dan just presses him down against the bed and swallows.</p>
<p>Blair gets up now, and when she’s back, it’s with wet kitchen towels of all things. Once upon a time, Dan would’ve found it aggravating that she thought they couldn’t clean up on their own and needed help finding towels, of all things, but now he just finds it cute. They clean themselves off, and then the three of them lie down in bed together, under the duvet, Dan in the middle.</p>
<p>“So, that was a thing,” Dan says unnecessarily.</p>
<p>“Sure was,” Nate says. He moves his hand, cups the side of Dan’s face in it, his thumb carefully pressing against the middle of Dan’s lower lip. All of Nate’s movements directed at Dan are full of a gentle consideration; a quiet kind of love. Dan likes it a lot more than he’d ever admit.</p>
<p>“Do you think –” Dan begins to say, but Blair puts a hand on his mouth, and says, “Sleep, Humphrey. It’s naptime,” in a way that implies that she’s just telling him to do the thing that she actually wants to do and hopes he won’t see through it.</p>
<p>Dan moves her hand aside. “Blair,” he says, softly, hopelessly.</p>
<p>More gently, she says, “Dan. We’ll talk about it once you wake up.”  She shifts a little, presses her head to Dan’s chest and moves his arm so it wraps around her, yawns drowsily.  </p>
<p>Nate leans in, kissing him gently and chastely. “We love you, okay?” he says. “When Blair wakes up after half an hour, she’ll still love you. It will be fine.”</p>
<p>“I’m scared,” Dan admits, quiet. “Sure, the sex was great. But good sex isn’t all a relationship is. There’s other stuff too.”</p>
<p>“We learn by doing,” Blair says to him. “You can’t cross a bridge before you get to it, Dan. We’ll figure it out as we go along.”</p>
<p>“What would it look like?” he asks, softly.</p>
<p>“Movie dates with Blair, soccer dates with me,” Nate offers. “Fancy dinners, at times. Nights like this, all of us in the same bed, holding you, kissing you goodnight. You waking up to one of us making you coffee the way you like it. Someone massaging your back when it gets stiff, and wrapping their hands around your feet when your toes get too cold. It’s just like dating one person, except you’re doing it twice.”</p>
<p>“It can’t be that easy,” Dan says again, but he’s beginning to believe it less and less with every passing minute.</p>
<p>“It will be that easy,” Blair says. “It will be that easy, because it’s us.”</p>
<p>“Yeah, what she said,” Nate says, and Dan gives him a look, like <em>really? </em>but he feels warm inside, comforted and at peace in a way he hasn’t felt in a long time. Like he belongs somewhere, and like all his dreams are coming true. Everything he’s ever wanted in his grasp. The two people he’s loved more than anyone else in the world lying next to him in the bed. He’ll never be able to turn the worrying off entirely, he knows that. But as he wraps an arm around Nate’s waist and pulls him closer, he allows himself to be happy, to exist in that moment.</p>
<p>“Okay,” he says. He kisses Nate’s forehead, and then turns his head, kisses the top of Blair’s head. He shifts, letting himself settle in the space between them. He closes his eyes.</p>
<p>It’s the best feeling; knowing they’ll still be there when he wakes up.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>writing dan humphrey POV smut when he's overthinking is SO difficult but hopefully i managed okay? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ <br/><a href="https://dancommablair.tumblr.com/">here's my tumblr sideblog, feel free to pop in and say hi!</a></p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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